Joules Brewery celebrates re-birth

Steve Nuttall, a former drinks company executive, celebrated the completion of his new brewery project last week with the bankers who helped fund the venture.

Construction of the Joules Brewery in Market Drayton, Shropshire, was completed last month after a year's building activity and is due to open this autumn.

Nuttall, who helped launch Irish ale Caffrey's into the UK in the 1990s and who bought the exclusive UK rights to the Joules beer brand from Molson Coors, marked the topping off ceremony recently with a few beers with the construction team firm that had built the 70 foot-high brewery tower.

He then sampled a congratulatory tipple with members of the Co-operative Bank team that helped the development possible with £2m in debt funding.

Together with his wife Chrissie, Nuttall used the pair's money to kick start the building project and to buy 17 pubs in the local area and further afield in Staffordshire and Wales.

Revamping the brewery, which went into decline in the 1970s, has been "a real labour of love for me and Chrissie", Nuttall said.

"It has taken us the best part of a decade to bring all the elements together and we're tremendously excited by the opening of the brewery this year.

"Some of our pubs are original Joules' houses but our plan is for the entire estate to be restored to former glories by applying universally high standards with traditional materials."

Daran Harding, business development manager at the North Midlands Corporate Banking Centre of the Co-operative Bank in Stafford, said: "We're genuinely pleased to help Steve and Chrissie to revive such an historic and popular brand of beer through the brewery and pub estate."

Once in full production Nuttall estimates the brewery will be able to turn out 10,000 barrels of Joules' beer a year.